


All the Ashes in Your Wake

by thenopetrain



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: AU in the middle of 4.08, F/M, Fix-it fic, Gen, Slow Burn, because I need it to be different
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-08-31 12:58:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8579473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenopetrain/pseuds/thenopetrain
Summary: “So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.” - E.A. Bucchianeri





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> (goes AU towards the end of 4.08)

Ressler hadn't even begun to put Kirk's van in park when Liz jumped out and sprinted for the garage ramp, bypassing several security cameras and exit doors, gun leading the way. It's the weapon Odette had held on her, and it feels justified sitting expertly in her grip. Distantly, she is aware of Ressler yelling for her, that he's telling her to slow down, but she can't seem to make herself take that necessary precaution. Nothing about this last year had been slow, why apply the brakes now?

The gate Kirk had been standing at earlier is rolled open, there are no vehicles to be seen, and she can just make out two figures down in the depths. As she enters the underground space, her eyes check the surrounding room, sweeping her gun from one blind spot to the other to secure her corners before her gaze locks on Kirk sitting, almost dumbfounded, before a subdued Reddington.

"Back away from him!" She raises her gun and her finger tightens just a smidge on the trigger. The man she thought to be her father looks over at her, gripping the table beside him as if to steady himself, shock still written across his face. There's a phone in his hand. He looks even more terrible than he did when she'd been taken away from this place.

"Masha?" She simultaneously feels a rush of warmth in her chest and an iciness in her veins as his voice cradles the contours of her birth name. A name she craved hearing in the oddest of ways, and a name he seemed to crave saying for as long as she had been in his presence. _Masha, Masha, Masha._ _Daughter, daughter, daughter._ Memories or not, she can no longer afford the compassion she's extended to him.

"I said, _back away._ " She steps closer, watching him push his stool away from Red. Kirk takes a deep breath, his demeanor drawn and strained in the harsh light illuminating the area.

"Masha, he-" Something in Liz snaps at the placating sound of his voice, and she takes a threatening step forward. _That's not gonna work this time._

" _Shut up._ " Kirk's mouth slackens a little, his eyes studying her from where he sits, and a tension she hadn't noticed before leaves his shoulders. The moment draws her back to a time just before she shot Tom Connolly, to the moment before she triggered a flashback of her shooting her father to protect her mother. Anger and guilt flood her, a tidal wave of emotion that makes tears burn her eyes. _If not Red, I should have believed myself._ And maybe all of this wouldn't have happened. If she had done something more with her mother's journal, if she had double checked, if she had trusted Red, if Red had just explained this all to her, if she hadn't faked her death…

_Red wouldn't have had to trade himself for me, again._

For the first time since arriving, Liz allows herself a good look at Red slumped in that chair. His breathing seems far too labored, tremors wrack his body intermittently, his eyes only half open, and she can see blood on his neck and in between his knuckles. _What has he done to you?_ The closer she gets, the more she can smell the sweat in the air, how terribly it mixes with the dusty component of the garage itself.

Liz brings her attention up, peers at the table, at all the empty syringes scattered across its surface as well; a picture forming in her mind about what had gone on here. Taking a habitual step forward, her foot catches against a syringe on the floor, and she peers down for a moment to watch it spin away from her in a slow arch. Still pointing her gun at Kirk, she senses Ressler behind her, and then it's as though there are bands across all of her muscles, panic in her veins.

" _Hands!_ " Ressler's commanding voice calls her attention back to Kirk, and the man seems to have been caught mid-act; reaching for a syringe filled with a yellow liquid. "Let me see your hands!" Kirk places his shaking hands flat on the steel table; his shoulders hunched, his lips pressed into a hard line. Ressler is on him in a second, wrenching his arms back and moving to cuff him. "Check Reddington." She stays for just a moment, trying to figure out what it was about her that felt _trapped_. Ressler meets her eye, " _Liz,_ I've got this."

It's as though her former partner has unleashed her. Her arms drop, she flicks the safety back into place on Odette's gun, and shoves the weapon into the waistband of her jeans as she takes the extra few steps to Red's side. Looking at him up close, she's afraid of what she'll find. Liz reaches out and carefully seeks the artery at his neck, a movement not dissimilar to when she'd checked Red's pulse after the boiler room exploded and she'd found him unresponsive. The fast and unsteady beat beneath her fingers sends her own heart plunging into her stomach.

" _God,_ Red," It's a worried little thing that comes from the back of her throat, as she takes his face in her hands and tilts his head up to get a good look at him. His skin is warm but pale, sweat soaking his face and the back of his neck where she supports it with the tips of her fingers. He is lax and pliable in her hands. She notices that his eyes seem to be rolled back, mouth askew.

Beneath both her little fingers, she can feel the erratic beat of his heart. Shaking her hair away from her face, terrified of the image before her, she tries to wake him up. Liz rubs her thumbs across his cheeks gently, and tilts her head to the side a little as his eyelids slide open a fraction. Beneath her thumbs, she feels his cheeks twitch, and suddenly there is weak smile on his face.

"Lizzie," The mere sound of his voice is enough to make her throat clench and she nods a little too emphatically; attempting not to let the semblance of control that she has over her emotions vanish. "You-," Liz feels and watches his jaw clench when a spasm wracks his body, as though every muscle is contracting, and he's left gasping, struggling to get the words out. "You came back." The shaky quality of his voice and the slurring of his speech accompanies a seemingly uncontrollable wince, and Liz attempts to hush him by smoothing her thumbs slowly over his cheeks again.

"I told you I would." He shivers again, the wince still in place as he leans into her right hand.

"Shouldn't have." He mumbles the words beyond whatever sensation is sweeping through him. She watches his eyes slip closed again, the furrow across his brow softening. He swallows thickly.

"Hey, stay with me, alright? You're gonna be okay." After a beat, he gives her a small nod, and that's all that matters to her: _his confirmation_. She doesn't care how panicked her voice sounds reverberating around this mostly empty garage. She doesn't care that Kirk's eyes likely bore into her back. Liz gently releases Red's head and she lets it dip towards his left shoulder again.

She glances at the screens behind Red, and then down at the pressure cuff around his bicep. She doesn't know what any of the screens mean, but the doctors that Kirk had hanging around must have been monitoring Red's condition while they tortured him. Liz turns her head over her shoulder to look at Ressler, who has a hand on Kirk's arm to keep the dying man in place on the stool. Their eyes meet for a moment, and Ressler looks back at the doors on the opposite side of the garage as though he's expecting trouble.

She feels it too, this anxious waiting. _A quiet space in the company of two dying men._ The look on Kirk's face can only be described as devastated, and Liz has to wonder what it was that he managed to squeeze out of Red while he had him. The thought makes her glance at the table with all the syringes again and she looks at the one Kirk had tried to pick up earlier. They had to call for help, they had to get paramedics here, they had to-

"We induced an adrenergic storm." Kirk's rough voice makes her look back at Red, as if to make sense of what he was saying. Red manages to blink his eyes open at the statement. "It was inevitable, I suppose."

"What is that? What does that mean?" Ressler yanks Kirk back a little, the wheels on the stool dragging across the cement floor.

"It's what I was trying to remedy before you _cuffed_ me." Liz looks back, and finds his attention elsewhere, and he murmurs something she doesn't catch, or maybe it was just another, garbled exhale. She's about to ask him, about to try to keep his focus on her, when Kirk says her name again. "Masha, his men are already on their way." A note of confidence sits in his tone as he sits there under Ressler's arrest, a quality to his cadence that reminds her of conversations that she'd heard him have with Red when they'd been at her family's summer palace. _He's a step ahead of us._ "He'll likely die if you don't give him that antidote."

"What did you give him?" She stares at Kirk with what she hopes is far more flinty look than she suspects it to be. _No need to show him your panic._

"This and that." He shrugs as if Red isn't rapidly descending into a somnolence that he might not ever get out of, as if what he'd done was perfectly reasonable. "It was the only way to get the truth from him." Kirk speaks as if the it's the most obvious thing in the world, but to Liz, it feels like he's daring her. _Ask him, go on. I've prepped him for you._ The temptation rocks through her, tugging at the bitterness in her heart and all the suspicion that might be vindicated with the right question.

"Why should we believe _anything_ you say?" Ressler heatedly pulls at the collar of Kirk's shirt and then casts a worried glance in Reddington's direction before meeting Liz's eye in silent reassurance. There really isn't time to think about how much she's missed being his partner, but _God has she missed it_.

"It's true." Liz turns and sees Red staring at Kirk around her, and notices the heavy way his chest rises and falls. The two men have come to an accord, in their absence, and Liz feels that familiar sensation of being kept out of the loop stir in her gut once more.

"It's the yellow one, Masha." Liz looks up at Ressler again and he shrugs. _There was only one way to find out._ It seemed like it was always this way with Red: either he would die, or he wouldn't. Those odds never sat well with her, and the only thing making anything Kirk had just admitted was that _Red said it was true._

Ressler leans over the table and picks the antidote up, extending his arm to her. Liz draws in a breath and takes it from his hand. She pulls the protective cover off the needle, and approaches Red with a mounting urgency racing through her. His head has lolled to the left again, baring the bloodier side of his neck to her. Her eyes trace the small scar she'd given him when this strange trip started three years prior and feels her a sweat break out across her top lip. _This is all my fault._ Liz looks at his still and exhausted features once more, for what she isn't sure, and inserts the needle into the side of his neck; apologizing even though Red doesn't seem to have noticed the needle going into his skin.

"He's going to need more of that." Kirk's words are lost on her as she focuses on Red for a reaction from the dosage, wondering if this kind of thing even works as fast as she expects it to. In the movies, antidotes seemed to work in the blink of an eye, and while she wasn't about compare her very real and very dangerous life to a movie, it did seem like one at times. But this antidote does nothing but making Red appear to lose consciousness, and Liz immediately feels for his pulse: still rapid, still off-kilter. "I told you," Kirk's voice infiltrates the garage again and Liz, leaving her fingers there to monitor his pulse as though it will give her a different result, only turns to glance at him when his pause becomes an irritation. "He's going to need more."

"What's the catch?" Kirk opens his mouth to answer her but there are tires screeching with the approach of two, black SUV's, and Ressler has drawn his weapon again to point in the direction of the doors as they open. Liz has begun to move too, abandoning her position next to Red in favor of standing in front of him, gun trained on the people exiting, as well.

Baz doesn't seem to appear armed when he hops out of the passenger seat of the second vehicle, followed by men from Red's team. He looks concerned when he sees her, his eyes roving over her and the situation around them. She gives Baz a slight nod before a commotion from Ressler grabs her attention. A handful of who she can only assume to be Kirk's men exit the first vehicle with guns raised in Ressler's direction, and Liz swivels to take aim at a blonde young man who is busy ushering Dr. Reifler from the vehicle. Upon seeing the him, Kirk gives a tired order in Russian that makes his goons drop their weapons. In response, Liz feels her arm drop as well; suddenly exhausted by the fact that she's, once again, stuck in the middle between two deadly forces.

"Miss Keen," She's looking at Ressler to make sure he doesn't try anything when Kirk's doctor approaches him and she finds herself gripping the gun in her hand a little tighter, no matter how relieving Baz's voice is to her ears. _Help is here, everything's gonna be fine._ She turns around to find the man crouched next to Red, taking stock of his boss's critical state with a practiced eye. "Did he tell you what they administered?" The question is almost an afterthought as Baz reaches to feel Red's pulse, a deeper frown forming on his face than before when he'd looked at her. And if she knew the man better, she'd say the question was for her benefit, and that he had a pretty good idea of what they'd given Red to make him talk.

"No, he-" She looks back at Kirk for a moment, watches Dr. Reifler examine Kirk's now unshackled wrists as Ressler stands disapprovingly off to the side, before she glances down at Red's neck where she'd given him the antidote. "I gave him a dose of an antidote just before you all arrived, but," She shakes her head and shrugs, resisting the urge to fold her arms across her chest as she thinks of Kirk's warning. "Kirk said he's going to need more, that they created an adrenergic storm or something, I don't know."

"Okay," Baz purses his lips, and looks to one of Red's men beyond her, a young, dark-haired gentleman that she remembers Baz cradling when the CIA tried to finish the job after he was shot. The look seems to be enough, because the man moves off immediately to the back of the vehicle. "And did he say where more was?"

"You'll get more when I get to Dr. Shaw." Kirk's voice rises up from behind them, and Liz glances at him with a renewed helplessness bubbling up inside of her. _You can see your daughter when you're free of Reddington. You will help me, Masha. One way or another. You'll get what you want when I get what I want._ "That's the deal: a life for a life."


	2. Don't Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for showing interest in this story! I hope you continue to enjoy it<3

_A life for a life._

The words resound in her head as she looks at Kirk's hardened features. A cold determination is written across his expression, and she feels as though there might be enough force behind it to shape the world around him. _It very likely has._ Between this man before her and Red behind her, she finds it unbelievably annoying that she's landed herself here; that life's odd twists and turns these past few years have dragged her into this position. _In the company of men who hack away at life until it resembles something they want._ She feels as much of a pawn now as she always has, and it stirs in her an anger that doesn't seem capable of simmering.

"Will beta-blockers help him or kill him?" Baz's question feels like a weapon pointed at Kirk, the sharp edge of a knife pressed against one's throat. Liz folds her arms across her chest, quelling her desire to pull the gun from her waistband as twin surges of confidence and frustration war within her. Kirk simply shrugs in response. She takes a step forward, her arms dropping to her sides, fists clenched, and she sees a few of his men twitch in her direction. "If he dies en route, that won't be good for you."

A few, heavy seconds pass by as Kirk stares at Baz beyond her shoulder, and Liz takes the opportunity to pin her eyes to the similar blue she'd so recently used to justify his own argument to herself. _You're my daughter. I just want us to be together, be a family._ This man was going to give her his entire estate, this desperate, dying man who trusted none of the proof laid before him after years of being strung along.

She doesn't know what it must have been like for him to lose who he thought was his child. The mere suggestion of losing Agnes, truly losing her, had created a deep and lasting panic she knows she would never recover from. _And he stood on the edge of a roof with my baby girl in his arms._

"They won't kill him." The ambiguous statement is followed by a shift of his gaze to her; his eyes softening just enough to convey some sort of reassurance. Liz drops her eyes and looks to Dr. Reifler, at the men who'd taken a step towards her a minute ago. It hurt her to look at Kirk. She hadn't expected it to, but she refuses to accept anything from him that might affect her heart. _You're compassionate; you'll want to save him._ With the ironic echo of Red's words in her head, Liz turns back to see Baz once again checking his boss's pulse.

"Please tell me you have a plan," She lowers her voice as she steps up to Red's other side, and endeavors not to be distracted by how his condition makes her stomach flip. _He hasn't regained consciousness since-_

"Dembe warned us." Baz nods and looks up at Liz as he says it; a slight, but sad smile gracing his features. _How many times has he pulled Red out of a situation like this?_ She remembers the first time she'd seen Baz, how he and his team had stormed the warehouse where they thought Garrick was holding Red. Everything had been professional: get in, get out, do what you can. And she recognizes that same method in the man now. "Can you help me lift him?" He rises, and the question has Liz looking down again at Red's slumped posture. She'd never tried to move him before, and aside from the random tugs and hugs here and there, she'd never been in control of his person. The prospect seemed foreign to her.

"I think so." In a flash, Baz has his knife out and slips it under the straps holding Red's wrists to the arms of the chair. A flash of regret strikes her when she sees them fall away; she should have done that before.

"Brace your hand against the edge of his shoulder, just in case." Baz waits a moment for her to comply, leading by example as he pushes on Red's other shoulder. Once the strap holding Red up in the chair is cut, a significant shift in Red's body brings his weight forward, but she and Baz manage to keep him upright. "Alright, we go nice and slow. Remember to crouch, keep your back straight." The small instructions serve to focus her, and the rest of the action in the room falls away as they move Red's arms around their respective shoulders and stand him up from the chair.

Her arm brushes against Baz's as they move to grab Red around the waist to solidify their hold on him. Every bit of his clothes seems cold to the touch, damp from sweat. A grunt escapes the back of Red's throat and Baz steadies the three of them by staying put, letting Red acclimate to this sudden shift in position. Liz feels a strain on her shoulders when Red tries to tilt forward as if to bend in on himself, his eyes clenched tightly in pain. She casts a worried glance over the top of his head to Baz, and he meets her eye briefly before looking to the men surrounding the SUV.

"You with us, sir?" The formality isn't lost on Liz as she glances down at Red, straightening her back just a little more as though the movement will draw him out of the pain he's feeling. Red seems only to be breathing more raggedly as they stand there, and Liz looks again to Baz with a shake of her head.

"He was in and out a lot before you got here." There is a quiet patience in Baz's features as he remains studying Red's posture and state.

"Okay," He looks at her and tosses his head at the edge of the platform Kirk and his men have the chair on. "Watch your step."

Liz shifts her arm down from Red's hip to grip his belt and waistband, in need of the extra leverage as they move him towards the back of the SUV. She and Baz relinquish Red to two men who hoist him into the safety of the armored vehicle. She watches Baz hop into the back, noting that they'd laid the third and second rows of the seats flat to accommodate the triage they were about to conduct.

There are alcohol swabs and IV's that pull winces onto Red's face. Medical equipment is turned on and a pulse oximeter is fitted to Red's finger. The monitors shriek when they produce their readings. Liz tries not to panic when Baz silences the noise and she takes note of Red's vitals there on the screen. There are hands that loosen and remove Red's tie so they can undo the first two buttons, making sure that nothing is restricting his breathing. They hang the IV bags from engineered hooks in the ceiling for such a purpose. There's talk of using the available vein in his left arm to administer something Liz can only guess to be a beta-blocker that Baz was asking about earlier. They're talking rapidly, back and forth, a controlled sort of chaos as they move to hand this and that across Red's body. She hears things she doesn't like, things that make her stomach drop.

 _His blood pressure is through the roof. Got an arrhythmia too, brother, if his heart has been in this state for long we might have to-_ Shock him. That's what the other man said. But Liz is looking at Baz, _calm and collected Baz_ , who glances at the monitors by Red's head.

"Don't know about that just yet." It's back to work, and Liz can hear Dr. Reifler speaking gravely near the other SUV, but his voice is drowned out by the roar in her own ears. _Red could die._ He could die. The three men work steadily, sufficiently, and by the time Ressler has come to join her at the bumper, one of them has placed an oxygen mask on Red's face, and they've turned him on his left side. The fact that Red seems so unaware of what is going on around him is what gets to her the most. It had been different when the Cabal tried to kill him. He'd needed life-saving surgery and seeing him unconscious then was vastly different than seeing him struggle with consciousness, with pain, with _speaking_ now. If anything, Red was articulate, and he'd been mumbling, for Christ's sake.

"Keen?" She doesn't hear him at first, the roaring in her ears is starting a chain reaction through her whole body, her determination not to watch Red die in front of her like fire in her veins. "Liz, hey, are you alr-"

"Gimme a sec." She pushes past Ressler and steels herself against the darkness she is sure clouds her eyes as she moves towards the door where Dr. Reifler is escorting Kirk's hunched figure into the SUV. She lifts her hand to motion for the doctor to pause, hoping her resolve is as ironclad as she remembers it to be. _Just like the old days, nothing to it. Get the right guy. Play the right card._ She offers the doctor a tight, grateful smile when he leaves the door open for her so she can stand next to Kirk. _Got him._

"Masha, I was hoping you-" He looked almost pleasantly surprised to see her appearance until he noticed that she'd reached around her back to grab her weapon; the muzzle of which was pressed into his side.

"Hands on the back of your hand." She fixes her eyes on the driver who has one hand on the shifter and another reaching for something at his left side. He hesitates, and she shoves the barrel into Kirk's side until he lets out a small sound of pain to make her point. " _Do_ _it!_ " Only when the man complies, does she look back up at Kirk. Ressler and Red's men have been alerted to the commotion, and she can hear her former partner curse amid the safeties being flicked off and the guns being raised.

"You're not going to kill me." She hates the smirk playing at his lips, she hates the confidence, the _arrogance_ , on his pale face. He's breathing hard, almost as hard as Red, and the rise and fall of his chest against the pressure of her gun feels like justice.

"No, but I could _shoot you._ " She looks down to indicate the leg she'd put a bullet in just before their plane crashed into the water. "It's not like I haven't done it before."

"So, what is this? You want to _hurt_ me for hurting Reddington? Is that it?" There's derision in the way he scoffs, as though this was an unbelievably ironic turn of events for him. She doesn't care.

"I think you know that if I shot you right now, the bullet would tear apart your liver." Kirk grows still and his features fall as he steadies his gaze on her. _Glad I have your attention._ "Now, I know livers are self-regenerating, but I'm not so sure that would be _good_ for a man in your condition."

"You think I'm afraid of dying a painful death?" She almost falters when he speaks, an infinitely tired and sad string of words. It almost makes her threats seem pointless. _Almost._ But she knows what he's capable of and she knows what Red is capable of, and, most importantly, she knows what _she's capable of._

"No, I think you're afraid of dying knowing that your little girl hates you." He blinks and there's a slight pulling back of his neck as if she'd slapped him with the comment. She knows that she has memories of him. She knows that what he believed about her was true for _him_ all these years. She knows that all the hope that he'd rested on her came from a good place. Because it was true...for a time it was all true. _B_ _ut y_ _ou've been had._ And she knew, intimately, the damage that came with that. "I _want_ to believe that what you've done came from a place of love, but if you let Reddington _die_ on top of all the other things you've put me and the people I love through, I _will_ hate you until my last breath."

He regards her with a resignation that nearly saps her of her own energy. His exhaustion for the way things had turned out is clear in the deep and shadowed set of his pale blue eyes, in the way sweat beads his forehead, in the way his lips are just a little bluer than when she and Ressler had arrived. The tension in his body seems to give, the muscles beneath his dress shirt shifting as he settles back into his seat a little more.

"I don't know what you've been told about her but," His blues eyes travel over her face as though he's seen something he's been missing for a very long time. Revealed to her is his longing and heartache, regret and a little bit of guilt. "You remind me of your mother. Your fire, your drive, your...dedication." He shakes his head a little and it's as though he hates the taste of that last word on his tongue, but she knows by the marveling tone in his voice that he means what he's said in the best possible way. _Just like he meant the best for me by keeping my daughter from me? By threatening me? By almost killing Tom and Red and those agents in the hospital?_

She wishes that he had told her about her mother before Red was possibly dying, before this whole situation had escalated into the ridiculous. She wishes they had had a chance to sit down and talk, that she'd confided in him about what she remembered. _But I didn't trust him. I didn't trust anyone._ They'd had her baby and she'd been a prisoner when she'd found that time capsule in the yard. Everything she wanted to address had been pushed aside for the vacuum that was Agnes being in the company of someone that might have farmed her stem-cells for his benefit.

"We injected him with a cocktail of epinephrine, a sort of inverse anesthetic, and pentothal," His tilts his head a little and lends her a smile that expects of her the worst. It's a smile she's seen on Red one too many times. "There's nothing you can do about what we gave him to cause him pain, but the other two can be balanced out with a regimen of benzos and beta-blockers." She almost moves to withdraw, but she can see the hesitation as he opens his mouth before closing it once again as if rethinking what he was about to say.

"Is that everything?" She feels like she asks this far too often of the men in her life. Red, Tom, Kirk... _some of it._

"I can't guarantee we didn't push his heart too far but," He twists a little in his seat to look over her shoulder, and Liz wonders what she's going to find when she finally steps away from this standoff she's created. _An army for me, an army against me._ "He's been annoyingly sufficient at surviving, Masha. If he can survive those burns of his, he can survive this."

She isn't sure what to do with what he's just told her, but she feels as though a rug has been swept out from under her. Her mouth parts just a little in surprise, and she backs away from him, a quiet, "Thank you," falling from her lips as she turns away from him to head back through the men that either follow her with her in their sights, or move to protect her. _If he can survive those burns..._ She'd never seen any burns on him, and granted, that didn't mean much when he wore what he wore; layers on layers on layers like the man himself.

"Keen, what the _hell_?" Ressler's hand lands on her shoulder as he falls into step beside her, and she glances over at him with a shrug, feeling cagey and left out in the cold all at once. "You good?" Liz looks to the SUV that holds Red and offers her former partner a firm nod.

"Yeah, sorry I worried you. I have to, you know." She waves her arm in the direction of the vehicle and notices Odette's gun is still in her hand. She pauses, then, turning back to Ressler, drawing him up short. "You should...probably take this." It was evidence, technically, and a part of her didn't want to keep carrying around Kirk's dead girlfriend's weapon.

"Nah, keep it." Ressler frowns at the gun and holds his hand between them as if to ward her off. She can't help the surprise on her face when she looks at him, and he balks a little, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips as he plants his hands on his hips. "What? I feel better knowing my old partner is armed around these guys, is that so bad?" She doesn't know what to say, and so she slips the gun back into the waistband of her jeans and reaches out for his arm as she turns to keep walking.

"Are you going to come with?" She looks around the garage for a second, at the syringes on the floor in the distance behind Ressler, at the harsh light and Red's now empty chair.

"Don't know." Ressler shrugs and Liz knows the temptation he's facing. The only difference is that she wouldn't have given a second thought about whether to stay to process a scene or go with Red. _It was always Red._ "I want to keep an eye on Kirk, but I don't want his people cleaning this place up to look as if it never existed." They both know which scenario is going to keep him, and she gives his arm a little squeeze in understanding.

"I'll keep you posted." She doesn't wait for him to respond as she stalks off towards the back of the truck, and when she rounds the corner, Baz has a stethoscope held up to Red's chest, the atmosphere silent and weighted, so unlike what she had experienced a few minutes prior with Kirk. The tension was still there, that nervousness and need to flee, but there was a calm as well; an air that she assumed Baz just supplied to everyone under his command. When he's done, Baz looks at her, and waves her in.

"We need to get him secured." She lifts herself into the back, and men appear around the vehicle to close them in. "Have a good chat?" He's lifting Red's eyelids up and flashing a light on them, checking to see if the pupil is reactionary or not as he asks the question, and she can't discern whether what he finds is good or bad.

"They injected him with a cocktail of epinephrine, an anti-anesthetic of some sort, and pentothal." She moves closer Red, sliding by the younger man along the right to position herself near Red's head as the SUV's begin to pull out of the garage and towards safety. She glances back, just once, to see Ressler on the phone already. Not for the first time since she'd shot Connolly, does she think how different her life is compared to what it used to be. _I miss it,_ she thinks with an ache forming in the back of her throat, but then she's looking at Red's pinched and sweaty face, how his short breaths puff against the plastic of the oxygen mask on his face. _And then I don't miss it at all._ It seemed that the paradox was bound to play out again and again within and around her.

"We've already administered what we can to counteract those," He watches her settle herself carefully by his boss's head, and then glances at the monitors near her thigh. "They're working, his blood pressure is coming down, and though his heart rate isn't as thready anymore, it's not where it needs to be."

"Could be because he's in pain," It's an off the cuff suggestions as she moves to place her hand on Red's cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin contrasting with the coolness the sweat creates.

"Could be." She catches Baz staring at her again, a quiet suspicion in his eyes that makes her feel exposed. She looks back down as Red when the truck falls into an uneasy silence as they speed through town. She shifts so that she's kneeling before him, closer now that she's not crouched and ready for action. It's not like she'll be handling his care when they get where they're going. She replaces her hand on his cheek again, fingers wrapping around the base of his neck a little as she tilts her head to get a good look at his face. Compelled to smooth the stiff muscle of his clenched jaw she gently rubs her thumb along it, and as if on replay, his eyes flutter open like before.

A rush of air fogs the entirety of the oxygen mask, and a weak sound comes from the back of his throat before he is forced to swallow, an action that seems far more difficult than it should be. She hushes him, glancing up at Baz behind Red's back for help, but he shakes his head looks at the monitors again, before checking his watch. She wonders when they last gave him something to help any of what was happening to him. Red is staring at her, a drowsy blink or two the only interruption of his steady gaze. If she didn't know better, she'd swear his eyes were clearer than they had been. Liz hears Baz ask their ETA, and the answer makes her give Red a smile.

"Hear that? Seven minutes, and you get to lie down, and sleep all of this off." _It'll be like a terrible dream._ And with some of the drugs he has on board right now, he probably won't remember much of it, which would be a relief in her mind. No one should have to remember every terrible thing that's ever happened to them. She finds some comfort in the fact that the drugs Kirk had given him might wipe the memory of the pain from his mind. She's still watching Red for a reaction like she had when he'd given her that small nod, but he simply furrows his brow and tries to keep his eyes open as he stares up at her.

"Don't leave me okay?" Her voice is clogged by a thickness in her throat, and she can feel her chin wobble a little as she brushes her thumb across his cheek again. The monitors beside her hip beep once, and Baz tilts his head to look at them as the vehicle takes a sharp turn. Liz moves her hand away from his cheek to steady his shoulder in order to keep him on his side, and watches his eyes slip closed again. Feeling as though she's been punched in the gut, breathless and slightly panicked, she grips his shoulder harder as the vehicle rights itself.

"Red? _Hey_ , stay with me," She jostles his shoulder a little and his eyes blink open again, and hold. He seems startled, and the monitors beside her beep again. She looks at them, notes the suddenly low pressure of his blood, and whips her head up to see Baz prepping something in a syringe to administer into Red's IV. The other, younger man from before is flipping on a defibrillator, the whine of the pads whirring to life fills her ears. "God, Red, don't go, okay?" His eyes threaten to stray closed again, but he manages to fight it off, his breathing a little more erratic. "How much longer?" She looks up at Baz as he glances down at his watch again, and then out the front window of the truck.

"Three minutes." His voice is tight, and his eyes are no longer reassuring to her. Instead, they show her a contained and careful worry reserved entirely, she knows, for those he deems at risk. The image of him cradling the young man beside her flashes through her mind again. _He made it out of that alive, so can Red._ But it didn't help her much when she had no way to move Red towards that inevitable hope when they were still three minutes away. Liz looks back at Red, and she finds him staring at her knees. She reaches for his shoulder again, grips it gently this time, and he focuses on her face again.

"Almost there, Red." She swipes at her face when she feels a warmth run down her cheeks, and there is a desperate emotion clawing its way out from her chest as she draws in a breath when the monitors start beeping frantically, and Red's eyes slide closed again. She leans forward, then, shaking her head a little as she moves her hand back to his cheek, fingers once more wrapping around the back of his head to pull him closer. "Don't go, Red." It's just a whisper, and before she can say more she's being maneuvered back and away from him as they re-position Red on his back and tear his shirt open. The young man beside her lifts Red's oxygen mask from his face and hands it to her. There's the sound of gel being applied to paddles, of them being rubbed together, of Baz telling the young man to _do it now._

Red's torso jumps up with the shock.

_Don't go,_

_Don't go,_

_Don't go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, it was way longer than I expected it to be. Kirk needed his moment and then Ressler needed his little thing in there, and yeah. Sorry if it dragged a little, I had to get a tiny bit technical seeing as I could not find any sort of toxins that wouldn't kill Red outright and produce what was happening on screen, so I went with a dangerous combo and some lovely anti-anesthetic courtesy of the example from the Garrick episode. Kind of a filler chapter<3 Hope you all enjoyed reading it! The next one should be up by Wednesday!


	3. Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here is chapter 3! (please don't judge me for my very non-medical background in a very medically necessary chapter for this fic haha) I will also be replying to all of your wonderful comments! I am incredibly grateful to you guys and those of you who have left kudos <3 Thank you for letting me know you are still enjoying this fic!

Liz can't stop staring at Red's body as it falls lax once more.

Images of his face bloodied and his chest heaving in an effort to get enough oxygen fly to the forefront of her mind, and for a moment she experiences a sort of clinical separation from her place next to him in the truck. Transported back to a time when he'd beckoned for her, when she could smell the tang of his blood on his breath, and see the pain and panic in his eyes as he asked, _no he begged_ , her to find Caul. But what she remembers most from that stark and fearful memory is the weakness of his grip in hers, the heaviness of his arm as she clutched at his hand.

" _Come on_ , Red, don't do this." Her eyes are riveted to his chest, now, watching the shallow and labored breaths he takes in the aftermath of the shock.

"Again?" The young man holds the paddles up in front of him, looking from the monitors to Baz with only the barest trace of stress visible in the way he presses his lips together after he asks the question. There's a shard of fear in her chest at the thought of them shocking him again, and she looks to the monitors beside her hip. The beeping isn't as frantic as before, but the readings don't look right aside from that.

"No," Baz is frowning when he looks down at Red's pale face, and Liz tries to take a deep breath. A more steady sinus rhythm appears on the screens after a moment, and Elizabeth feels as though she should be able to unwind the tensions in her shoulders but it's no use. She hands the oxygen mask over to Baz who only nods his thanks and places it back over Red's face.

"Why isn't he stabilizing?" It comes out sounding a little more accusatory than she intends, and she tries to soften the furrow in her brow as she levels her stare at Baz across from her. "He _should_ be stabilizing, right?" Liz feels as though her nerves are buzzing through her body. _Don't panic. Don't. Panic._ It wasn't going to help any of them, and _God, these are the longest three minutes of her life._

"He isn't getting enough oxygen." Baz admits, pointing to the corner of the screen where his blood pressure, sO2 levels, and cardiac output dip. Before Liz can even ask what that might mean, long term, Baz has placed his stethoscope in his ears and is listening to Red's lungs. She looks to the young man beside her and a flash of annoyance runs through her at the thought of constantly being comforted or reassured when he offers her a small smile.

"I made a call before you and Baz got him to the back of the truck." She's staring at him, surprised by his steady voice and the gentleness of the hand with which he grips her shoulder. "Dembe said he'd prepared for something like this."

She gives a stiff nod and the younger man's hand slips away. There might have been a time when she basked in the camaraderie shown to her by Red's people, but all she can feel right now is the doubt coursing through her. _How can anyone be prepared for this?_ Blood and bullets she understood, but hearts, lungs, and conditions that seemed more subversive than all the spies and secrets in her life were not supposed to be on the table.

"He has something on board to help his heart but...either he's going into cardiogenic shock or he's suffering from acute pulmonary edema." Baz withdraws from Red and drapes the stethoscope back onto the floor beside him, waving at Liz and the younger man beside her to assist him as they turn Red back on his side. Liz hates the way his face seems to droop behind and around the mask. There's nothing in the world, right now, that she wouldn't give to go back a few hours in time to stop all of this. _I never should have gone back to Kirk's room._ When they get him settled again, Baz looks back at the monitors and then at his watch just as the men in the front seat call out a 30-second warning.

From there, it's a different kind of preparation. There are instructions from Baz to the young man beside her, quick and concise in terms of what to grab and where. They come out sounding like reminders that he's reiterated a hundred times before as he reaches for the monitors by Liz's hip to lift and prep for what she thinks is going to be a coordinated mad-dash inside where ever they are headed. Baz turns to Liz and tells her that they're going to have to be quick about this given Red's condition.

"You're going to hold these up and move with us as we exit the back to get him on the stretcher. Make sure they don't pull." The IV bags are unhooked and passed to her as they pull into a nondescript loading bay. They all brace themselves as the SUV comes to a halting stop and the back doors are flung open. Beyond Red's feet are two paramedics, Rosa Heredia, and, to her complete surprise, _Nik_. She makes eye contact with him for a split second, sees his eyes widen in a mixture of shock and fear, before everyone is moving into position, and Baz has begun relaying his findings and treatments thus far.

They extract him from the back of the vehicle with relative ease and when no one bothers to take the IV bags from her, she's forced to jog along behind the stretcher. Kirk's own arrival is lost on her as the facility they enter becomes a blur of modern-looking rooms, labs, and analytic spaces. She can't decide if she should look at Nik for signs to be worried, or if she should look at Red and plead with him to stay with her like she had been before. They come to a stop at a glass enclosed space. A nurse opens the door to receive them where more monitors stand waiting to be hooked up, and medical equipment and tools line silver trays.

"Stay here, Miss Liz." Baz's voice draws her attention away from Red's pale and sweaty face as he takes the IV bags from her. She wants to protest, she wants to follow him in anyway, but something in the way he has just looked at her makes her halt, and the glass doors whisper shut before her. Now that she's stopped moving, a wooziness accompanies the flood of nerves in her stomach; a sensation like waves and fire ants. And she wishes that she went into a medical background so that she didn't feel so damn useless standing here as Nik, Rosa, and the rest of Red's medical team work beyond her to save his life.

"Elizabeth?" Dembe's soft voice calls to her from down the hall to her left, accompanied by the sound of his light footsteps. When Liz turns to look at him, she sees his eyes drift from her face to the near-frenzied work of the people around Red. She doesn't know if she should rush to him, hug him, recognizing she is desperately in need of his usual kindness, but things aren't as they were. _And they might never be again._ So she simply crosses her arms over her chest to guard against the chill she feels in her realization; ignoring the fact that she misses the warmth between them and the smiles and the friendship. It's only when he stays silent beside her, that she thinks he's waiting for her to speak first.

"Baz said something about cardiogenic shock or pulmonary edema." She speaks quietly, afraid that what she's said will somehow be made reality by voicing it. And though everything seems to have a solemn and hushed quality in this hall, Liz finds the replay of her voice loud and incredibly ominous. She doesn't bother looking at Dembe for his reaction. She doesn't need to know what the specifics of those two things are to know that they are life-threatening.

Beyond them, the nurse and the paramedics begin to remove Red's clothes, and Liz feels a strange twist in her stomach and chest. _If he survived those burns..._ But before she can search Red's body for anything, Dembe has moved himself between her and the glass door and her view of Red disappears. For fear of looking ridiculous, she refrains from trying to peer around him, and takes a small step back to look up at his face. There's a silent plea in his dark eyes, a softness and a sorrow that suffocates her.

She wants to tell him she's sorry for not getting there sooner. That she's sorry for not fighting Kirk harder, for not believing Red, for being cruel, for faking her death...for betraying everyone, but the words won't come. Instead, there's just a warmth gathering in her eyes again, and it _burns._ Before she can do anything else, Dembe draws her tense figure into a hug, her face buried into his chest until she's crying so hard that she can't breathe; a tightness in her chest that feels like panic and a trapped scream wanting to get loose.

She's aware of been led down the hall, of him shepherding her into what appears to be a private conference room, before he pushes her gently into a leather office chair. She's staring at the blurry image of her hands in her lap, not bothering to wipe away the tears on her face, and the way her legs have crossed over so that she can just slip her suddenly, chilly fingers under her leg. Liz hears Dembe roll a chair up before her to sit as well.

"Take a deep breath," His deep voice is soft and kind, and all the things she doesn't deserve from him. But she takes the deep breath anyway, feels it pull at the back of her throat and against her sides as her lungs expand. "Let it out." Slowly, automatically she falls into the breathing routine, once, twice, three times, before she feels an exhaustion seep into her limbs that she has witnessed before in countless victims of trauma. _In my studies, in the New York Field Office working with the forensic team there, the two years before I-_ it seems like a lifetime ago that she was any of those people who did any of those things she remembers. All she's known is the steady descent after choosing to kill Connolly. "Look at me, Elizabeth."

She does, of course she does, because Dembe doesn't seem to belong in this world of Red's no matter his lethal abilities, and she silently marvels at how he's remained so seemingly _whole_ after the life he's led. There's a part of her that yearns to ask how he does it, how he keeps his head above water, how he manages to stay _good_. His eyes meet her own with a slight and questioning tilt of his head that echoes Red's mannerisms but in very _Dembe_ way.

"We will _all_ get through this." She sees shadows on his face that she recognizes from that day Red and his team were squatting in that church. They seem to infiltrate his eyes, the worry lines around his mouth, the slight concern that knits his brow. She can't exactly voice her agreement, because she feels unmoored in a sea of shame and utter self-loathing, but she has it in her to nod.

They sit there for a time. An hour passes, then two, and Liz lets the tears fall as they will, unable to contain this emotional storm she feels within her. Guilt. Sorrow. _Regret._ Dembe leaves at some point and comes back with two water bottles. It's when he extends one to her that she feels the words she should have said bubble up within her. Liz takes it and places it on the table behind her.

"I'm sorry." There was nothing else for her to say. The apology falls out of her mouth, wet and nasally, when she drops her eyes to her hands again, stroking her thumb over her scar in a way that she knows will rub the skin raw. She doesn't know what she expected, but it certainly wasn't _silence._ This quiet disapproval from Dembe is almost fitting, and Liz is surprised to find that she welcomes it. But it isn't enough for the Sudanese man across from her, because he reaches for her hands to still them and when she looks up, she finds him staring down at their hands; his face appearing almost pained.

"There will be time for apologies." Liz squeezes his hands gently with her own and then extracts one to wipe the tears from her face with her sleeve. When she's settled herself a little, Dembe pulls back and he extracts a burner from his pocket. "The line is clean if you want to call Tom and let him know you are okay."

Liz stares at it as though he were holding a grenade without its pin. _Agnes, Tom..._ She knows that she should call and let him know she was alright, but she knows he'll pick up on the fact that she's been crying, and she _really_ doesn't think she can handle anymore people trying to comfort her today. For God sakes, did she look _that bad,_ that worried, that lost? Liz takes the phone from him, thanks him, and watches Dembe push away so that he can stand up.

"I'm going to go get an update, and then I will back." There is no invitation for her to follow. No invitation for her to find out with him or be there or stand outside and watch as though that will help. Instead, she's left in the silence of the room after he pushes his chair back to the table and walks out. She knows that he has left her alone so that she can privately make her call, but it feels a lot more like he's acting as a barrier between herself and Red, which is stupid, because she knows that isn't what he meant at all. _Or maybe it is?_ She wouldn't be able to tell, these days, anyway.

Liz flips the phone open and finds Tom's number already programmed into it. After staring at the call button, she decides against it and shoots him a text instead.

_Hey, it's me. I'm alright. Red's not. Will call when I have a longer moment. Give Agnes a kiss for me._

She flips it shut, feeling numb and tired from yet another crazy day of explosions, gunfire, and emotional roller coasters. A short time later, Dembe reappears at the door and is opening it again when the phone vibrates in her hands. She lifts her eyes quickly to Dembe, sees Rosa stepping around him into the room as he holds the door open for her, and then glances down quickly to read Tom's reply before slipping the phone into the pocket of her jacket. Liz stands, even though it looks like Rosa might have wanted her to remain seated; the look on her face sending a chill down Liz's spine.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Compulsive and impatient, Liz crosses her arms over her chest again, and glances at Dembe for some clue as to what is about to come out of Red's part-time surgeon's, part-time manicurist's mouth.

"With the right treatment, he will be." It's not a 'yes', and it's not a 'no', but Liz will take it. "After the cardioversion Baz and Matthew conducted, his heart _did_ fall back into a more regular rhythm. But following that, he suffered acute pulmonary edema. We are monitoring his heart and have started him on medication to reduce the amount of fluid in his lungs." That roaring in her ears, from before when she'd been standing there watching Baz and Matthew work in the back of the SUV, is back. Only this time, she doesn't have Kirk to aim her anger at, she doesn't have any way to help the situation _at all._ Liz shakes her head slightly, trying not to lose herself in her own guilt trip and takes a deep breath.

"What else?" There was always more. There had to be more. _I need something to hold on to._ "What's his prognosis?" Rosa and Dembe share a look that leaves her feeling helpless and only a bit more terrified of this next answer than she originally thought she'd be.

"As you know, Mr. Reddington was shot in the chest last year and punctured a lung, so, we're afraid that the edema could become a chronic issue if the correct steps aren't taken. Most pressingly, should his blood-oxygen levels remain the same or lower, we may have to intubate him." Rosa turns to look at Dembe once more, and Liz can see him squint his eyes a little in question. "We're worried about damage to the liver and kidneys at this point." _And the punches keep coming._ Liz reaches out for the chair she'd vacated and seats herself, leaning forward on her knees as Rosa and Dembe look down at her in concern.

"I'm fine." Liz swallows, hard, and then waves her hand in a motion for Rosa to continue. "Keep going." They don't seem to believe that she's fine, and as her lips begin to tingle a little, neither does Liz. _Breathe. It's fine. He's going to be fine._

"We have no way to counteract the medication he was given to cause him discomfort without potentially endangering his respiratory function." Rosa looks apologetically at Dembe when she says this and then glances at Liz with a softer and more compassionate expression. "The best thing we can hope for is that he doesn't regain consciousness until the fluids we have pumping through his system have flushed it out." Liz knew that just because he was unconscious didn't mean he wasn't in pain, and pain meant an elevated heart rate, potentially distressed breathing, and more of a risk for Red's health in the long run.

"And if he _does_ regain consciousness?" Liz feels nauseous after she asks the question, seeking Dembe's focused gaze as he nods to Rosa; having, it seemed, wondered the same. Rosa looks down a little at the space between Liz and Dembe, and sighs.

"We have already administered a dose of a type of super aspirin, to help with the pain and any inflammation he might have." Liz knew the basics for heart issues, that aspirin was safe in cases of cardiac distress. The first time Sam had had cancer, he'd been prescribed a few to reduce the swelling around his lungs after surgery without compromising his ability to breathe. But would it be enough to curtail whatever Kirk had given Red to help make him talk? She doubted it. _But it's all we've got._ "Other than that, we'll have to keep him calm, and _still."_ Rosa's emphasis on the word sends a thrill of fear through her and Dembe fidgets, adjusting his stance to lean a little to the right.

"You said before that Dr. Korpal inserted something to take the strain off of his heart while you worked on him?" Dembe's voice is thick and deep as he asks the question, and Liz isn't sure she enjoys hearing the worry in his voice. Liz looks to Rosa again, tearing her eyes away from Dembe, and feels just a little more panicked than she had before. She doesn't know how this conversation started from _h_ _e should be fine with the right help_ to _they inserted something to help his heart,_ but here they are.

"Yes, an intra-aortic balloon pump, but that should be removed by now." Rosa doesn't seem concerned by this balloon pump, but Liz can't help the alarm she feels as she looks to Dembe for confirmation that this is a _safe thing_. "Don't worry," Rosa seems to have picked up on Liz's suspicions of this device, and offers the two of them a small smile in reassurance. "It was just to take the workload off of his heart while we stabilized him."

"Right," She smiles a little in return because she knows that Rosa means well, but none of this is easy to take. "Can we see him?" There's a tinge of longing in her voice that she didn't want present, but can't quell, and she looks quickly back to Dembe for help on this. _Please, just let me see him, let us see him._ She didn't know where else this day would take them, and she just wanted to make sure he was-

"The both of you can be in the room with him, but I ask that you be careful." There's a note of hesitation in the surgeon's voice, and Liz has to take a deep breath to calm herself down, clasping her hands together in front of her to ward off the sudden wave of frustration and defensiveness. _It's not like I haven't been in this situation before with him._ And the memory of stalking up to him, demanding he lie to her after he told her the truth, of walking out on him after he very nearly died at the hands of the Cabal, invades her mind once again. Catching Dembe watching her, she wonders if he is remembering her penchant for storming off as well.

"Dr. Korpal will be monitoring Mr. Reddington for the next few hours as I assist Dr. Shaw with Mr. Kirk, but," The surgeon smiles briefly at Dembe and then gives Liz the same offer of kindness. "If you two have any concerns, you can find me down the hall and to the left." She reaches out to grip Dembe's arm before she turns to leave, and then, when the door snicks shut, it's just the two of them alone with their thoughts.

 _Kirk is down the hall._ It shouldn't bother her as much as it does; like a fly that just won't stop buzzing around her face. _Kirk is down the hall._ At least she won't have to hunt him down to hold him responsible if Red doesn't make it out of this. _Kirk is down the hall._ But the truth was, 'down the hall' wasn't far enough. Sheet rock, glass, whatever the hell else this facility Red had acquired was made of, _wasn't enough_ to keep the warring emotions within her from clashing again and again and again.

Protectiveness of Red.  
Intrigue about these so called burns Kirk had mentioned.  
A desire to know more about her mother.  
A desperate need to keep Kirk as far away from Red as possible.  
_Down the hall isn't good enough._

"Elizabeth," Dembe takes a step forward and offers her his hand, pulling Liz, quite literally, up from the mire of her thoughts. A rush of blood goes to her head when she stands and she's left blinking the static away as he checks her over. "Are you sure, you are alright?" She's almost afraid that she's going to be irritated when he asks after her well-being, but, instead, her lips twitch into a smirk and she nods.

"You sound like Ressler," Just mentioning his name is a reminder that she'll have to call and update the team later. She watches Dembe makes a small face at her before shrugging.

"There are worse people to sound like." He tosses his head towards the door and the two of them make their way in mutual silence down the hallway back towards Red's glass room. She steels herself when she spies him out of the corner of her eye, and avoids looking at him directly until they're passing through the door; a sudden hesitancy overcoming the muscles in her body. Doubt creeps into her every limb as she looks at him lying propped up in bed, the oxygen mask from before still on his face. He looks uncomfortable, his face still holds that sheen of sweat, and though his chest doesn't rise and fall quite as raggedly as it had before, there's still an effort behind his breathing that picks at the scab of worry within her.

Liz can't help but think he looks so terribly _normal_ in the hospital gown they've put on him. There are leads that no doubt connect to his chest. The IV is far more professionally done than the meager needle they'd had in his arm when he'd been shot. There are more bags of fluids, some larger, some smaller, and she notes the automatic cuff on his left bicep that connects to the heart monitor. It's a distraction technique, following all the wires away from him as if it will help ground her in some way.

She misses his resilience after being shot, that he had been awake relatively quickly after that. And though she is thankful that he _isn't_ awake, now, she has an irrational desire to see his eyes. She even misses the jacket they put him in as if they expected him to walk out of the warehouse after surgery, and the fact that they hadn't put him in his attire of choice means he's not well enough. 

She moves off to Red's left side, seeking one of the stools as Dembe picks up another and walks around to seat himself next to the right, studying the man he calls brother with a quiet and practiced care. Following his lead, she picks hers up as well to avoid wheeling it closer on the off chance that the sound would wake him. Sitting there, watching his breath fog the oxygen mask again like she had in the truck, Liz feels a desperate need to take hold of him, and gently lifts his left hand to clasp between her own.

His fingers lack the warmth they usually possess and it makes her frown as she stares at them, carefully drawing her thumb over his knuckles in a slow, smooth arch. She doesn't know how long she and Dembe sit there with him. Time seems to fall in on itself in this clean, glass room. _I've stared too long into the fire._ The sudden thought disturbs her, and she blinks the burn out of her eyes from having dazed off while looking at Red's hands. Every detail has been owned by her stare as she's sat there, memorizing every glint of hair on the back of his hand, every ridge of his knuckles, the veins and tendons she can see there, the tan, the freckles, how it has grown warmer between both of her own hands.

It's the sudden, feeble grip against hers, followed by a slight hitch in Red's breathing that has her heart in her throat. Dembe is standing before she makes sens of it to stand over his brother, and Liz rises as well, watching Red's eyes slide open before he grips her hand a little harder.

"Raymond, it's alright." Dembe's soft voice is accompanied by a hand atop Red's head, smoothing the bunched skin with his thumb where a wince has appeared. "You need to be still, _'akhi_." Liz swallows the lump in her throat as she watches Red's eyes seek Dembe's above him. "Breathe around the pain." In the quiet space of a few seconds, the man between them seems to draw some semblance of control from his brother's request and presence. She and Dembe both watch Red as he attempts to calm himself down, a tension present in his body that Liz wishes she could spare him.

"You're safe, Red, we got you outta there." Liz finds her voice and gently squeezes his hand again as she spies the muscles in his jaw tense. His attention pivots from Dembe to her with a slight glance of reckoning and relief and just a little bit of surprise that strikes her like a kick to the chest. _He didn't think I would stay._  She offers him a smile, nodding as he looks at her; pain radiating from his stare. He tightens his grip on her hand in return, and leans his head back into the bed, eyes closed and breathing hard. "Shhh, easy, now. You're gonna be alright." She's aware of the tightness in her voice when she says it, aware that her vision is blurring with tears again. _You have to be alright._ Liz glances at the monitors to her right, blinking to clear her vision, and sees the jump in his heart rate. _Where the hell is Nik?_

After a few minutes of her and Dembe coaxing Red back to sleep, the two of them sag back onto their stools with a shared look that is part triumph and part devastation. Dembe looks back to Red and leans his elbows on the bed to bring his palms up to his eyes before he drags his hands down his face, looking up as his lips move in what Liz can only guess is a silent prayer. As Liz looks to Red once again, one of the doors behind her whispers open, and Nik's voice grabs at her through the quiet.

"Everything alright?" She can tell by the way Dembe's face darkens when he looks to Nik that _no, everything is not alright._ And not for the first time in the weeks since Kirk had kidnapped her and Agnes, Liz wonders what Dembe thinks of what she's done.

"He woke up in pain, but we got him calmed down as quickly as we could, and now..." She looks from Red to Nik, feeling all the stress of the last few minutes overwhelm her as she yawns. Nik walks into the room and checks some of the monitors, takes note of Red's vitals, and marks some things down over in the corner where a computer is set up that she hadn't noticed when she walked in. For the most part, Liz ignores him, trying to stave off the slight bit of panic at having to explain herself to him after everything he risked. It was stupid of her to think he would just walk out after he was done tending to the man he helped her get away from.

"Liz," His hand touches her arm briefly before dropping away, and she looks up at him with a mostly flinty stare. "Can we, uh, can we talk?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter. So, this one for sure felt like a filler chapter to me, but I hope you all enjoyed it nonetheless. I have some of the next chapter written because I had to cut the chat coming up off since it didn't feel right being in this chapter. So HOPEFULLY the next chapter will be up by this weekend unless I've fallen into a food coma from Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading!
> 
> on a sidenote: 'akhi means brother in arabic. Also, the pulmonary adema thing is an actual thing that can happen if you mix epinephrine and pentothal together too much. Yikes. (so can cardiogenic shock, but I didn't know how to doctor my way out of that one without potentially killing Red so...yeah no bueno.)


	4. Treason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. I am so sorry for the long wait. I has just been one thing after another since I last posted. thank you so much for patience, reviews, favorites, and follows. I am so so so appreciative of the interest in this story. I hope you enjoy this chapter, since it gave me a bit a grief (5,000+ words were just sitting here wanting to be finished). I kinda went through a period of immense turmoil over...well...everything. I hope you guys enjoy it, and I am beyond grateful for your patience (I said that already but I'm serious haha the guilt is real).

 

As Liz exited Red's room, she could feel Dembe's quiet frown trailing after her. Knowing that she shouldn't have, Liz looked back once to give him a nod in confirmation, but to confirm what, she didn't exactly know. _Yes, here I go to discuss my reappearance with the doctor who helped dupe your good friend. Yes, we're once again going to talk privately without your company. Yes, my co-conspirator is freaking out. Yes, I think I am still the person I was when we decided that ill-conceived attempt at escape. Yes, you are totally right not to trust me._

The only respite from Dembe's heavy look, and the immense weight of the guilt it placed on her shoulders, was found in the cutting stress of Nik's voice once he'd led her to the very room where Rosa had given them her worrisome update on Red's condition. Once he looks back down the hallway to see if they'd been followed, an action that irritates Liz on the spot no matter how founded his paranoia, her ex shuts the door and faces her with what she can only describe as panic.

"Are you _kidding me?_ " As a troublemaker, Elizabeth had learned early on to take a deep breath when faced with an impending accusation; knowing that if she had prepared herself for a raised voice, the raised voice had less of an effect on her defensiveness. It wasn't a practice she had employed in a long time, but after a day that involved the revelations, dangers, and heartache that hers had, she was resorting to her base-self; the core of which felt more familiar and less frightening than all the other pieces of armor she had donned to separate her life from Reddington's.

 _I got used to that life, thrived in that life._ And it still terrified rush, the fun, the affection she harbored for him in those moments between freaking out and getting away, the undeniable and unavoidable intimacy she didn't have to dodge, an intimacy that-

"What? You're not going to answer me?" Liz watched Nik pace away from her, his hands up in the air before he made an about face near the door to come storming back towards her; taking up residence in her space the way he had when he nearly refused to take the bullet from Red's chest a year or so ago. "Did you know he _kidnapped_ and interrogated me after we did what we did? For a whole day, I sat in a chair _convinced_ he was going to kill me." Nik's voice broke, and Liz felt her eyebrows draw together in concern, picturing Red seated across from Nik with that cold determination she observed while on the run with him.

"We went over your death a _dozen_ times before he came to the conclusion that there was nothing different that I could have done to save your life. I _lied_ the whole time to keep you safe, and here you are next to the man you wanted so desperately to get _away_ from?!" He looks at her as if she's going to help him makes sense of it all, and Liz has it in her to grimace a little. What was there to say?

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'm grateful for what you did, but-"

"But, _nothing_ , Liz!" He practically hisses the words at her as he stands there, crossing his arms over his chest tightly as he leans forward. There's a terror in his eyes that seems magnified ten-fold compared to the conversation she'd had with him when Tom had been shot. _When I saw someone who felt just as trapped as I did then._ "I risked my life for you for _nothing_. Was interrogated _for nothing._ And Mr. Kaplan? Where is she? Why isn't she here? Because I haven't spoken to her in about two weeks, and she said that she would call if something was going to go wrong. She said she would _get me out_."

"I don't know where she is." It was a question she had been asking herself since Red brushed off her inquiry in the graveyard. _Where's Mr. Kaplan? What have you done with_ _her?_ Red had conveniently sidestepped that conversation by bringing up Agnes. Smoke screened by her ultimate kryptonite, she'd forgotten- _no, scratch that-_ she hadn't had the _time_ to ask him about Kaplan again since then. _He couldn't have killed her._ This was Mr. Kaplan they were talking about. They had a history. A _long, sordid_ history. They trusted one another, cared for one another. He couldn't, he _wouldn't_ -

"I don't want to die, Liz." Nik moves to the very chair she'd been sitting in earlier, and she turns to watch him. There was a point to all this, there _had been_ a point to all this, and now it seemed like a childish ploy. _A terrible game of hide and seek._ The failure of their attempt to get away from this life, the pain she'd brought to her team, to her friends, to Red... _It's because of who I am._ Liz clenches her fists and walks to Nik. She crouches there and takes his shaking, sweaty hands in hers.

"I won't let him kill you." Nik scoffs in reaction, trying to see if she's serious about her promise. She knows that he isn't stupid. Nik is aware of just how much Red is willing to do for her. "And I would tell you to get the hell outta here, _right now_ , but I need you to stay." Nik didn't seem to be the kind of man to worry about what might happen if he left, and he seemed to be in it for himself and the money regardless of his ability to save people's lives. Liz is all too aware that Red had only been alive to trade himself for her today because this man in front of her was paid handsomely to dig a percussion-cap bullet out of his chest.

"You _actually_ want me to help him, don't you?" She stares up at him from her crouched position, and squeezes his hands a little tighter; catching his eye with an earnest worry blossoming in her chest. _There's too much to think about right now._ One thing at a time, that was how she was going to get through this without going insane. Just one thing at a time. And that one thing happened to be Red's health and safety. _He saved my baby and traded his life for mine._

"Yeah, I do." _I can't just walk away, now._ Somewhere, there is a wise, old man working diligently from the shadows, an old man that told her that she should do just that, if she knew what was good for her. _And you would keep walking._ Nik's face is a mask of exhaustion, the stress he exhibits making the room seem jittery and her close proximity to him makes her feel restless. He stares at her as if she's insane, but she can tell he's resigned to it; empty and drowning in the insanity of this life.

"You need to make up your damn mind, Liz." It's a muttered thing that makes her defensive, and she stands, feeling drained and numb with no where to turn. _Red. Agnes and Tom. Kaplan. Nik. Dembe. Baz. My Team. Kirk. My mother._ Her list seemed to get bigger as she stood there watching Nik get his feet under him again and check his watch. He turns towards her, and Liz realizes that, since leaving Red's room, the fear has never really left his eyes. "Look, after this? I'm _done_. You tell him that for me. Cause I don't ever wanna hear from _any_ of you again."

* * *

_Drowning men always bring someone down with them._

That is all she can think as she ignores the vibrating phone in her jacket pocket and watches Kirk through the glass surrounding his room. It's almost the same as Red's except the equipment is notably different, and Kirk's lungs don't have fluid in them, and Kirk didn't need someone to shock his heart, and he didn't need to be on oxygen to breathe.

 _And, and, and._ In fact, the man looked to be doing a far cry better than he had been when they all left that Godforsaken garage. His color was back, and though he was sleeping, his body seemed relaxed and comfortable. Which was more than Liz could say about Red.

_Drowning men always bring someone down with them._

If it wasn't for Red, it would have been her that Kirk brought down with him. If it hadn't been for Red, Kirk would have likely taken her child from her, as well; a thought that she could not breathe against the magnitude of even after Agnes had been safe at home. She had been so blinded by the hope of her past, _her true past,_ that she had fallen for a ruse. _A ruse he probably fell for as well._ For the man lying in the bed before her had seemed so desperate to believe a lie, so damaged by the truth, that no such emotions could be faked for someone's benefit. _Could it?_ She knew very well that who she came from and what happened didn't necessarily make her who she was going to be or change the reality of what she was in the middle of but.. _._ _At least I would know why this is all happening._

Folding her arms across her chest, Liz catches a bit of her reflection in the glass. _Tired, disheveled, stressed..._ God she really needed to change her clothes, take a shower, go home, hold her baby girl... But home consisted of a small room built inside a warehouse, with armed guards and verified entries, and a bed for one that she and Tom shared, and she could hardly handle thinking of all the little things she had to square away about her life since finding out she was pregnant, let alone take a decent shower and nap. There was Red's condition to worry about, Kaplan's whereabouts, keeping Nik safe, talking to Tom and the team, being a new mother, worrying about the future, if Kirk would stay in it, how Red would react, if he would forgive her, if anyone would ever forgive her... _If I really want forgiveness..._

Liz drags a hand down her face, tries to shake some of the dozens of things she had to do from her mind. She lifts her face to the ceiling and closes her eyes; feels the tense muscles in her neck stretch. The memory of standing before her and Tom's old brownstone after Red killed a man for her in Wujing's bunker, after she read the ballistics report from Tom's gun. _I had a life. People who cared about me. Friends to drink with._ She doesn't know how she lost all that...or, more specifically, _when_ she had lost it.

When she opens her eyes again, Kirk is blinking at her from his bed, and she can't help the way the muscles in her back tense. He doesn't seem to have noticed the way she startled, and she wonders if it's because he doesn't care anymore or if he's pretending for her sake. Either way, it doesn't matter. His arm rises and he beckons to her, a small smile on his face, and Liz feels her jaw clench in response.

Just hours before, she had threatened to kill him if he didn't tell her what she wanted to know in order to help save Red's life. Just hours before, he had let slip the information about Red nearly being burned alive. Just hours before, he had been holding her at gun point. _And just hours before I watched Odette jump off a pier because of what their lives had become in his pursuit of the truth._

She glances at Dr. Shaw who has been dividing her attention between the computers at her work station and the lab set up behind it. The woman seems oblivious to her. Considering how hard the doctor is working, Liz has to wonder what's in it for her. And, not for the first time, she wonders what deal Kirk and Red made for the two of them to survive the grudge match that ensued earlier. _Because of me. Because of my mother. Because of my father._

"Can I go in there, or is he like," Dr. Shaw swivels in her chair to look at her and Liz waves her arm at the glass and Kirk's general set-up next to his bed. "Not well enough for that?"

"It should be fine," She gestures to the alien algorithms, DNA sequencing, and charts that she's been contemplating and smiles. "See this? It means that, essentially, the procedure will work like it did for my previous patient." Liz isn't sure how to feel about that, nor is she sure that Red should be granting Kirk this miracle when he himself had suffered so terribly.

"He'll have the entire rest of his life to look forward to after this. Thanks to Mr. Reddington, I suppose." There's something pretentious in the doctor's voice that makes Liz feel cold, and instead of saying anything, she simply nods and enters Kirk's room; thoughts of prices, sins, and Red's willingness to absorb the misdeeds of others clogging her brain.

"Masha," He seems far away. His eyes are glassy, his smile soft and tired. Liz's eyes glance at the IV bags hanging beside his bed and she identifies medications that she recognizes as painkillers. Among them are fluids to hydrate him and bags of blood for transfusion. She stands at the foot of his bed, her arms still crossed loosely over her chest.

"I don't know what to do about you." Her voice is quieter than she would have liked. It lacked the punch and the ferocity from the last time they spoke, and she wonders why she can't get those two things back; why she can't be furious at him, why her irritation at him calling her Masha seemed a half-hearted grievance within her. _Flailing, that's what I'm doing. I'm flailing._

"I don't like that you call me Masha, and I know we knew each other from before...I know you were there sometimes, that my mother made you believe I was your daughter, but I-" She just wanted to make sense of what she remembered. Even after reading her mother's journal, she could hardly comprehend the sheer intricacies of her past in connection to Katarina and Kirk and Red. _It's a puzzle missing all the corners and the very middle and without the corners or the center.._. How was she ever supposed to piece it together and see the whole picture?

"It's just as hard for me to hear you call me anything but 'father'." His face seemed pained, but relaxed at the same time, like his grief was as much a part of him as his longing for the past and the happiness those memories had brought him. Except, part of his attitude felt disingenuous when the impetus to know her seemed also to save his own life. "I don't think I can separate the past with what we now know. To me, you will always be my little girl, whether you accept it or not. I lived it, Masha. For a short while...I lived a life in which I was your father."

"I _know_ ," She snaps at him, her jaw clenching as drops her hands and grips the railing at the foot of his bed. Her thoughts are suddenly filled with memories of Sam and their life; of boats and camping and laughter and how precious her childhood had been because of him. _Did I forget you? Would you have understood?_ Of course he would have, and he would have known exactly what to say to make this all better...to make it _clearer._ "I get it, alright?" She bows her head and forces herself to take a deep breath, hoping it would make her feel calmer.

"I'm guessing you didn't just come here to tell me that you feel conflicted about your name." She lifts her eyes from her knuckles and stares at him. His lips are quirked, his eyes softened, as if to coax her courage out from within her.

"No," She says, after a moment's hesitation. There was a part of her that didn't want to ask him anything. Part of her didn't want to know. Part of her needed today to have never happened. She swallows and, despite her need to look unaffected in front of him, she takes another deep breath. "You were going to give Red the antidote when we got there. You had it in your hand...you-" She finally meets his eyes, and she studies the blue in them. Now that she wasn't seeing what she so desperately wanted to see...his eyes were paler than her own. "You were going to help him...why?"

He's quietly studying her, and maybe she's imagining it but it looks like he's holding his breath. For half a second she believes he isn't going to give her anything, that he's going to withhold things now that he knew she wasn't his daughter. There was nothing between them for him to gain. But he surprises her and, instead of clamming up, sighs, "I already told you. I was going to help him because we had a deal, and because he told me what I...needed to know."

"What you needed to know? You _tortured_ him for information." She pushes away from the end of his bed, crosses her arms in front of her, and begins pacing before him; her steps are thoughtful, but there's an energy coursing through, nervousness and dread leaking out of places she swore she'd sealed tight, as she weighs everything she knows about Red and how he operates. About secrets, lies, and the things we tell ourselves. "So what is this? You think you _broke_ him?" A laugh punches out from the back of her throat; butter and arrogant at the thought of Kirk prying anything useful from Red's lips.

"He told you _exactly_ what he wanted you to hear and nothing else." It's a familiar and resounding answer from her own thoughts, from too many tastings of that particular medicine, and the silence that sits in the room after makes her wonder if she's given away something she can't get back.

"That may be," She sees him shrug in the reflection in the glass and Liz finds herself crossing her arms tighter, frustration building up within her. "But I tortured him because I thought he was the reason for my grief all these years, for my pain..."

When she turns to face him again, her eyes drop to where his hands link together over his stomach. It's not uncharacteristic of him to appear so poised. Even under duress when she had shot him and brought that plane down he was patient and calculative; waiting to see how things played out.

"I was going to kill him, let him suffocate, as it were, but just as I was about to do it, he gave me the information that would ultimately save his life."

"And that was..?" She feels a plunge in her stomach just then, as if the answer was going to topple her and clear away the shadows she's thrown up around her like walls to keep out the light of the truth. He gives her a soft smile, the kind that knows too much and seems floored by the avenues that knowledge opened up. She suddenly finds herself wanting to take the question back.

"Undeniable proof that he isn't your father." She stands there staring at him, mouth slightly agape. There's a small thrill of fear in the back of her throat, the kind she got the first few times when Tom would stare too long at Agnes, the kind she got when she watched Red walk into the room and glance at the empty crib the day before they got Agnes back. It was the kind of terrible breathlessness that came in the silence after she accused him, terrified, of lying to her about her father's death, about his relationship with her mother, and his consistent _I have never lied to you._ It had been more than she could say for herself.

"And, what, it's over just like that?" She wanted to dance away from whatever Red told him in order to survive. There was a fine line that she and Red had drawn in the sand the day they spoke of her pregnancy, and though she was absolutely certain that such a line had already blown away, she wasn't eager for it to be thrown in her face by a man who was still a stranger. He knew nothing of her life. He knew nothing of the things Red has gone through in the last few years, let alone the last twenty or so. And while she can't boast of her own knowledge of the particulars, there is enough knowledge to make her defensive.

"Well, there _were_ the medical perks to think about." His eyes are alight with humor, and Liz can feel the edges of her own crinkle in suspicion. _He's teasing me._ But then it slides away and Liz finds herself staring at the expression of the man that had brought her to the Summer Palace, that had tried to coax her into remembering and embracing a past only he recalled. "Besides, I know what it's like to a live without the opportunity to watch your daughter grow. I can think of no finer vengeance than what you've done to him."

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said before, so so so sorry for the wait! I already have the next chapter somewhat finished since I cut this one in half, but I'm revising a bit of it, so that should be up by Tuesday or Wednesday. It's the chapter that wouldn't end hah Thanks for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> So that's the first chapter! I hope you guys liked it. I have half of the next chapter written already, so that should be coming up by this weekend. Thanks for reading! Let me know what you guys think :)


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